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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988361">Killer Creeper</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnOddSock/pseuds/AnOddSock'>AnOddSock</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Burned at the stake, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Eldritch, Gen, Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), Is it a vine is a tentacle hold on it's BOTH, Loss of Control, Memory Loss, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Mild Gore, Monsters, Parasites, Possession, Purgatory, Temporary Amnesia, Tentacle Monsters, Tentacle Rape, Tentacle Vines, burned alive, but it's more like tentacle take-over and less like noncon, the SPN version not the catholic version</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:41:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,945</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26988361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnOddSock/pseuds/AnOddSock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Trust Cas to find the one thing in Purgatory more powerful and more alive than anything else in the god forsaken place. A thing that has a fetish for control and the ability to get Angel under its sway.</p><p>With something else riding his vessel like a fairground carousel, he needs to make Sam and Dean aware of the problem. The difficulty there, of course, is that he’s not exactly in control of the reins.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Supernatural Eldritch Bang</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is my fic for the SPN Eldritch Big Bang 2020! It's an idea that I had rattling around inside my head for about a year before I found time to sit down and write it, so I've loved finally getting this story into words, and I'm excited to get to share it now.</p><p>Thanks to my beta Triss, for being wonderfully on board with my every diabolical plan.</p><p>And thank you to SaintedSam for being my awesome artist for the bang. The work you've made is so awesome, and complements the story so well! You can find the art embedded in the fic <a href="https://saintedjack.tumblr.com/post/631953480154808320/eldritch-bang-2020-art-post-title-killer"> here</a>, but you can also check it out here, and I'd love it if you did and let my artist know that you like it too :D</p><p>Without further ado, here is my slight re-telling of season 8, where something even more sinister than Heaven was the one controlling Cas...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>Purgatory was made of nightmares, a place of deep dark fears and shadows that go bump in the night. It turned Castiel into nothing more than a living breathing target. Made to run, always on the cusp of a new fight, forever the prey being hunted.</p><p>The everlasting twilight, and the strange fog that settled over the ground and distorted the senses, the timeless wastes and neverending threats all bore down on him. A weight on his shoulders and a thorn in his side.</p><p>He often wondered what Dean was making of it; if he would laugh in the face of the danger, if he was weary, or if he was growing as bitter and harsh as the surroundings. He wondered about it to try to remember his friend fondly and in fighting spirit, and ignore the guilt that sank into his gut for having left Dean to fend for himself.</p><p>Something in the air drove sickness into his lungs, and only ceasing to move seemed to let it abate. The place was poison, no doubt about it. It was a monster's hell, and Cas felt more and more like an outsider, something that didn’t belong and couldn’t thrive there, with every day that passed. Everything was out to get him, murderous and malicious. Whether it was the Leviathans spearheading the campaign, or his grace shining too brightly in the dark, or just that he was so obviously out of place he could never be sure. No matter how much he stifled his grace, no matter how little he used it, it was never long before something picked up his trail again.</p><p>He moved with all the stealth that he could without the use of his wings, treading lightly, always aware of his surroundings. His senses on high alert, even dozing was fitful and restless. He heard footfalls and scuffles before a human ear could have, and he scented sweat, blood, and fear on the wind ahead of any approach.</p><p>It was always a sickening reminder that his supernatural strength and senses could have been the thing to keep Dean safe—not just a beacon that would draw attention to the human. He couldn’t think like that, it was too late now.</p><p>He was always ready to blunder through the undergrowth, or to slink away into the gloom as fast as he could to not be found. He was alone, and he would stay alone. That was just the way of it.</p><p>He’d been constantly on the move for almost three full days, unable to stop and rest, pursued by too many at once to consider turning to fight. He was run ragged, his memory bringing up images of foxes and hunts, wolves and prey, desperation and dying breaths. Spittle flew from his mouth as he breathed harshly, short sharp inhales and exhales, just enough oxygen to power muscles and blood, to work life into an achingly tired vessel.</p><p>He stumbled onto the clearing entirely by accident, and in another life, another place, maybe it would have been dappled in sunlight and swathes of sweet cool shade. Here it was a bank of fog—a low cloud—a sunken pit of darkness that his feet sank into as he strode forward. It was cooler below the fog bank in a way that felt unnatural and he didn't realise he’d slowed until he stopped altogether. The wet fog came up to his knees, and his ankles and calves were chilled, shivers and goosebumps rising up his legs.</p><p>He sank into a crouch until he could touch the earth with his palm. He jolted back with a hiss. It felt… alive.</p><p>Alive in a way that nothing else here ever was. Bright and shining, and <em>awake</em>. Teeming with energy that he couldn’t place or understand.</p><p>The clearing was ringed by dense trees, crowding in at the edges in a wall of branches and thorned protrusions, just as black and twisted as every other tree in Purgatory. He didn’t know where the energy was coming from, nothing looked different. As he turned he realised he also couldn’t see where he’d entered, not able to place which narrow opening he’d pushed through.</p><p>He heard footfalls and cursed, turning on the spot to look for the best way out to flee from encroaching enemies. There was a small dark hollow to his right, a patch of deeper twilight that seemed to wink invitingly. He headed towards it and the mist parted around him, the swish of his coat sending flurries into the air.</p><p>Rolling his eyes in exasperation, as though he wasn’t already mucky and coated in filth, he got down on his knees and crawled into the hole. He expected a tunnel of some sort, a lower patch of ground that would lead him out of the clearing and back into the forest. What he found instead was a pit, almost burrow-like. The ground under his hands and knees turned from earth and mud into woody texture—layers and layers of overlapping hardened root systems and branches. The burrow itself was entirely covered in vines, criss-crossing the walls and roof. It was like sitting inside a birds nest, only man-sized and made of living things.</p><p>There were small blossoms dotted about, pale blue-white and almost glowing in the dimness. Hardly any light made it into the burrow but with his angel eyes he could see well enough.</p><p>Angry shouts and jeers reached his ears from above and behind in the clearing, and he tensed, aware that he had no way out. The Leviathans seemed almost able to smell him, to track him wherever he went, and now he was trapped. He drew his angel blade and crouched on the balls of his feet, waiting for an attack that… didn’t come.</p><p>A creeper moved, and he whipped his head toward it. It inched forward and a new flower opened. The blossom unfurled with a small puff, a cloud of pollen secreted into the air in a white and green powder. Cas sniffed suspiciously, tilting his head. It had no scent he could discern at all, the utter absence of smell. It permeated the air, stifling in his nostrils with its nothingness, and blew softly toward the entrance he had crawled through.</p><p>As he waited at the bottlenecked tunnel, he started to feel his shoulders relax. A sense of contentment began to creep into the edges of his mind. His attuned focus listened for his stalkers, and when he heard them march away, shouting about having lost his trail… he slumped back exhausted. Drowsiness swelled with the relief, blanketing his mind in one fell swoop.</p><p>A little vine curled around his ankle and he stroked it with one finger. “Thank you. Whatever you are... l thank you.”</p><p>The plant around him shivered, bristling, and Cas smiled. Was it pleased? He laid his hand on the overlapping roots and vines below him and patted it once. “You are a wonder,” he said, awed and enraptured.</p><p>He vowed to investigate the properties of his newfound hiding spot, and how it could mask his presence, later. First he took the opportunity to nap, more secure and at rest than he had been for weeks.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He stayed in the clearing and the secret hollow for a long time. He felt safe, and not wanting to risk exposure, he abandoned any use of his grace at all. There was no need for it, he wasn’t being pursued and requiring extra bouts of strength or stamina, or being injured in fights and needing to heal, and now he had a place to sleep he didn’t need to be constantly rejuvenated by it.</p><p>A little exploring provided him with a nearby stream—as murky and questionable as every other water source in Purgatory, but close and still refreshing. It was good to drink deep and cleanse some muck from his skin. It was good to indulge in the human pleasures of long rests, and quenching thirsts. His true nature was buried in the dark hollow, held safely inside himself and hidden by this new strange ally.</p><p>The nest was underneath a large blackened tree, dead all the way through for years, if he guessed correctly. The viney plant had taken hold of the empty space beneath the roots of it, twined itself around the trunk and mingled with the bark until Cas could barely tell one from the other. He thrust his hand up into the roof of the nest and wiggled it around. He never felt clean air touch his skin, and realised the vines must have wrapped around and over themselves in a way that was thicker than his forearm.</p><p>The plant seemed drawn to him, everywhere he laid little blossoms sprouted; he woke one day with a crown of them above his head. When he touched them they withered, crumbling into dust that stuck to his fingers—or shrank away to become shrivelled things so rotten and brown he wondered how they’d ever been alive in the first place.</p><p>Despite shying from his touch it had taken to him, and he to it. On the occasions a threat came near whatever power it had to shield itself extended to him, too. It’s pollen was potent, made him drowsy and thick headed, and covered his skin and clothes in an odourless film. He didn’t have any real way to investigate its properties without books or someone else to bounce ideas from. He ran a small experiment instead; lining the trail between the hollow and the stream with pollen. He found it created a safe passage. In the days that followed, there wasn’t sight nor sound of any other creature on the path.</p><p>His only conclusion was that the plant kept itself secluded by excreting some kind of pheromone, and that his own scent was also masked by it.</p><p>He began talking to it, asking it questions that he knew it couldn’t answer; it felt good to use his voice again. He was croaky at first and he didn’t dare to speak loudly, but he grew stronger with practice.</p><p>“Perhaps I should bring my friend here, you’d make a good dwelling. You could protect him, and I could protect you.” He seriously considered it: finding a place where Dean—if he were still alive—could rest and recuperate was the least he could do. “Of course, I’d have to find him first.”</p><p>The plant recoiled as he spoke, tendrils retreating until there was only the hardwood roots and thorny protrusions left.</p><p>“Don’t be like that, I wouldn’t leave for long.” He hoped that were true, there was really no way to know how long it would take to find Dean.</p><p>A vine snaked out, curled around his wrist. He smiled, and then hissed as thorns dug into his skin. It tightened, and he saw for the first time a black vein running through the centre of the plant.</p><p>“Hey now, what’s this?” He tugged his hand free, ignoring the small cuts that sliced into his wrist and chuckled to himself as it caught on his fingers. “Let me see.”</p><p>The thing around his hand pulsed and he eased out his angel blade, carefully placing the point against the streak of black. If the plant were infected or poisoned by some other ill, perhaps he could get it out. He broke through the outer skin of the vine, pierced through into the juicy centre of the stem and was about to slice it open when the hollow became a vacuum.</p><p>All breath was pulled from his lungs, and he groped blindly for the exit, gasping for air that wouldn’t come. An ear-splitting screech rent the air; high and long, it drove into his head until he opened his own mouth in a silent scream. Air rushed past him in a <em>whoomph</em>, flattening him onto his back as his ears began to bleed.</p><p>He fell into unconsciousness even as he convulsed and arched in pain.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He woke with the scent of sweet dark earth filling his nostrils. And not just his nostrils, it was in his mouth, under his fingernails, coating his skin and lips and clothes.</p><p>Face down in the dirt he struggled to move, and found he couldn’t. Something pinned him and he growled in indignation at the helplessness. He twisted, attempting to turn himself over, and every inch was a struggle. He gave up and raised his head to assess his surroundings.</p><p>He was halfway out of the burrow, head and shoulders into the short tunnel that led outside. He clawed towards the exit trying to think what had overcome him, but something hauled him backwards by the ankles. He was flipped over and landed bruisingly hard onto his back.</p><p>The burrow was different; his eyes flicked from place to place seeing no sign of roots or vines, no thorns, no flowers. Just bare earth and the dead and rotting tree above. But there was something beneath him, and it was moving.</p><p>“Reveal yourself!” he spat. The heaving mass beneath him roiled, sharp points dug into his back and jolted his limbs. “I am an Angel of the Lord and I will not suffer you to hurt me.”</p><p>Even as he tried to rise up, something snaked around his middle and forced him flat on his back. He realised with cold dread why there was no more plant along the ceiling of the nest; it was curling underneath and snaking around him, roiling in waves that felt eerily like the rising and falling of lungs<em>.</em> It was smothering, clawing, enveloping him. His helplessness and confusion teetered toward panic; his commanding tone had no effect and his powers were limited here. His influence was negligible, and there was no one to come to his aid.</p><p>“Get off!” He tried to drag his legs free but something coiled tight around each ankle and spread them wide, his legs lost in a writhing mass that wrapped around his knees and thighs and kept him prostrate on the ground.</p><p>He reached for his angel blade but his hands were caught, dragged away from his body and pinned down. The vines were smooth but they encircled so tightly he felt them cut into his flesh. He wrenched at his wrists, tried to claw at the moving mass that held him down but smaller vines curled around and between his fingers forcing them wide and not able to do more than twitch in discomfort.</p><p>“What are you? What do you want?”</p><p>The mass underneath him moved like snakes. It heaved and pulsed, tentacle-like protrusions wrapped over his midriff and began nudging under the edges of his clothes. It was pointless to fight when he could barely move but it didn’t matter, he reacted instinctively and used every ounce of strength to push back against what held him. It didn’t give, only tightened, and panic flooded his mind. What kind of creature could subdue an angel and resist his superior strength?</p><p>He was lifted up, the vines below him forcing his back to arch as the grip around his ankles and wrists pulled them sharply downwards. He was held steady, closer to the roof, spread eagled and immobile. Something wrapped around his throat and forced his head back, completing his transition into a totally helpless state. He opened his mouth to scream and a vine pushed past his lips and began a low, steady crawl toward his throat.</p><p>His neck was squeezed mercilessly and he didn’t need to breathe but had grown accustomed to the rhythm of it. He choked, and gagged as the thing in his mouth reached his throat and pushed through the resistance. He felt it inch down his gullet, twitch by twitch. His scream was lost and muffled, and he couldn’t twist away, couldn't stop it.</p><p>Things slithered over his skin and he realised tendrils had found their way beneath his clothes. The inside of his wrists and thighs were circled, until thorns broke through his skin, pierced down until blood welled up in warm rivulets. He convulsed, trying to twitch and dislodge the intrusions that wiggled under his flesh and inside of his body, but his limbs were held fast, and he couldn’t cough to expel the thick vine in his mouth. Discomfort turned to pain as the thing inside his mouth grew wider and forced his jaw apart while it slid further into his stomach. He screamed again but couldn’t draw a new breath to refill his lungs. A second vine branched from the first and began to inch down his trachea into his lungs.</p><p>All higher reasoning switched off, he became a creature of pain, pinned and stuck, as he was groped inside and out. The branches inside him spread into thinner tendrils, exploring his stomach and filling his lungs. He spasmed as oxygen was denied. All his muscles responded to the ache and intrusions by tightening, clenching hard, ready to fight. It made the pain worse but he couldn’t help it.</p><p>There was a scream stuck in his lungs, trapped beneath the smothering vines that wiggled inside them. There was a struggle trapped in his limbs, pinned below the mass that had enveloped them. He was unable to think beyond the danger and pain.</p><p>Vines coiled around his groin, wrapping his dick tightly, squeezing until blood was trapped. One poked and prodded at his ass, inching toward his hole. He tried to scream as it breached and then impaled him from the other end. He was frozen, spit roasted, and finally hung limply, overpowered and with nowhere to go.</p><p>With every other avenue of movement stolen from him, something deeper awoke. He was an angel, and angels were much more than blood, or sinew, or bone. They were beings of pure power. Trapped within the body that served as his vessel, something flickered. If he had been human, he would have called it hope; if his mouth had been empty, he would have smiled. He had an ace up his sleeve, and he was going to use it.</p><p>He reached for the deep well of power within him, let it grow and spark. He no longer cared if ceasing to smother it drew the Leviathan’s attention, he had to fight this with everything he had. It crackled below his skin, eyes widening and lit with blue. He stoked it like a fire, willed it to be enough to save him.</p><p>Something screeched and his bonds shivered and he thought for a moment that the creature was reacting out of fear, that he’d found a way to win. Short-lived elation bloomed, and then faltered as a vine clamped over his eyes and forced them closed, the heat of his grace trying to find a way out was uselessly shuttered behind his eyelids and the tight coil of the creature.</p><p>A sharp stab sliced into the back of his neck, drawing his attention. There was a relentless tugging of flesh pulled asunder. The pain was unimaginable and his calm focus shattered. He slammed back into the whirlwind of sensations of hurt-agony-trapped-pinned-impaled. More stimulation rattled through him as something cut deeper into his neck, wormed its way into his bloodstream through the sinews of his muscles until it hit the nervous centre at the top of his spine.</p><p>The thorns that had pierced his wrists and thighs dug deeper, clawed into his nerves there too. Another thrust jabbed into the centre of his back, cutting into his vessel until it reached his spine. The pure energy of his grace was alarmed, screeching, writhing away from the intrusion that searched for it. The creature had some sort of sense, it chased the remnants of power, magic coursed through him and as it zipped around his nervous system his horror only grew. Tears leaked from his eyes instead of grace.</p><p>Terror overwhelmed him anew. His grace retreated into the depths of his being, and the creature <em>chased it.</em> It shouldn’t have been possible. His power should have been greater and more terrible but when the creature found its mark it latched on, and it <em>sucked.</em> It leeched from him, drew his power into itself. He felt his grace growing weaker and that would be bad enough, but there was more.</p><p>Something leaked <em>back</em>.</p><p>A blackness, thick like tar, ran through the connection back into him. He could do nothing but watch and feel his power be overwhelmed and altered as the battle raged within and the transfer happened drip by tiny drip.</p><p>He squirmed in the vines that held him, felt the soundless whimper that shuddered through his chest. Bound and blinded in the dark, while a different kind of darkness trickled into the very centre of him.</p><p>He had swallowed every soul in Purgatory once, and that had made him feel so full he thought he might burst. This felt more like being trampled down, stifled, made smaller and smaller, pushed down so there was space for something else to slip beneath his skin. The slick, oily feel of something else inside him was the same though; a sickness he couldn’t get out, and wouldn’t ever feel free of.</p><p>The things inside him were frenzied, a fervour that grew into a maelstrom. He tried to heave a breath, only dragging the vines in his lungs tighter, and he convulsed again and again with the pressure.</p><p>Tiny tendrils began to reach out from every part of the plant that was inside him, searching. They found blood vessels, nerve centres, they attached to his insides and clamped down like leeches. Thrashing did nothing and got him nowhere—he could barely shift in his bonds and when he did all it got him was more pain as he rubbed his skin raw.</p><p>The power transfer increased, a throbbing ache inside him as he was assaulted in every way. The vines that covered him pulsed, the ones inside him thrust in slow languid movements. He felt light headed, dizzy. Time started to slip by in ebbs and waves that he couldn’t track. He didn’t know how long he’d been held aloft and endured the assault but his mind started to slow as exhaustion settled in.</p><p>A migraine pounded inside his head, more than physical it was like his grace crying out, desperate to be heard as it was overthrown. Cramped and squashed inside a vessel that was too small to contain both him and this parasite. His own power was so far from his control, slipping through his grasp.</p><p>The oily substance inside him expanded, until it made no logical sense that he was still whole. He should have been ripped apart by the strain. With one last thrust it surged forward and the air was once again sucked from the chamber. Everything pulled in and in towards Cas; the breath before the storm, the silence before the crescendo. With one final deafening and unearthly shriek it pushed into him.</p><p>The vines suffocating his body unfurled whip-quick, dragging thorns through his skin as they pulled back. His eyes were uncovered, and then his mouth empty, both wide open as he screamed. The tangled matter suctioned inward, flying through the air and the pain at the top of his spine intensified until his entire existence narrowed down to that point. There was nothing before or after, it was all there ever had been, ever would be. It went on and on. Slick, slithering things disappeared into him, taking up residence inside his body, pushing his grace into a smaller and smaller space.</p><p>The branching roots filling his lungs retracted last and as he took a first free gulp of air his grace burst forth in a flash. From his chest it arced outward, looking for somewhere to go, reaching desperately toward the sky. He watched it through terrified eyes, saw it swirl and then unfold. His descent away from the ground, only half-formed and weak with part of his consciousness still trapped behind his eyes... <em>paused.</em> Was held <em>back.</em></p><p>The bright blue grace light erupted into flowers and vines and wicked thorns, they hung suspended in the air for a moment, sprouting from his arched chest. He gasped another breath and with a squeal they snapped back into him, were hammered back underneath his skin, and he wailed as his last escape was torn from him.</p><p>He was full again, rippling with black, inhabited by an essence that wasn’t him, wasn’t good, wasn’t right. How did it always come back to this? Why was Purgatory so intent on destroying him, ripping away who he was and replacing him with something else?</p><p>The darkness blanketed his vision, blocking out light and thought, and pulling him into its depths.</p><p>One word echoed through his mind as he lost consciousness, one word that chilled him to his core.</p><p>
  <em>Ours</em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    
  </em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>His pursuers hadn't found him, it seemed. He woke from a deep rest, alert but feeling content in his new-found safety. There was nothing left to do here but move on, find more cover, keep ahead of the enemies that trailed after him like hounds on the scent.</p><p>He ached, and rolled his shoulders and wondered why he had a sharp pain at the back of his head. He brushed off his concerns and searched for his angel blade, only momentarily concerned about why he would abandon it.</p><p>The little nest looked bare and barren, no creeping tendrils in sight, no cushioned places to lie. He was irritated by a bone deep ache from sleeping on the compacted ground, and questioned why he thought there would be anything there but rock, earth, and dead tree. Whatever dream he’d had was gone, and he needed to keep moving.</p><p>When he crawled from the hole it was with no recollection that he was missing time.</p><p>When he moved on, he remembered nothing.</p><p>When he left Purgatory, clutching Dean’s hand, it was without the knowledge that something else was along for the ride, that he carried something else from the realm all over again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There were moments that he knew what he was doing and he clung to them. In between… in between was fog and missing time. And those lost moments were filled with a sense of purpose, a sense of surety, deep down in his bones, in his gut—and that itself made him nervous, felt <em>wrong. </em></p><p>He hadn’t been sure of anything since he’d eaten Purgatory’s souls and proclaimed himself the new god. He hadn’t felt purpose since he’d abandoned Heaven's plan and made his own way in the world.</p><p>His time in Purgatory may have cleared the cobwebs out of his mind, but he was fairly certain it hadn’t instilled an innate sense of right or purpose in him. It had been survival, pure and simple, it hadn’t made life back on earth any more clear or his role in the ranks of Heaven any more understandable.</p><p>He shook off his pondering train of thought, it got him nowhere. The quiet whispers underpinning his thoughts, that spoke of being better off alone, he tried to silence too.</p><p>Silence became dangerously unpredictable though. Somewhere in the empty black, things happened. He found dirt caked along the creases of his palms, something that looked and smelled like blood crusted under his fingernails. Rips in his clothes that hadn’t been there before. The stain of fights and the aftermath of a struggle painted on his body, but lost to his memories.</p><p>So he pointed his feet in the only direction he knew might help: the Winchesters. They were steadfast and unerringly pointed towards true good. Finding them seemed like the first step to finding his own centre, and unearthing some answers.</p><p>He couldn’t remember why he’d left Dean so suddenly. They’d barely touched down earth-side before his wings unfurled and he flew away into the night. He didn’t say goodbye or give any warning. He’d abandoned Dean in Purgatory on their first night, and perhaps he’d assumed Dean wouldn’t want him around once they got out… though that made no sense either when he thought about how long Dean had fought to find him. He just had to hope there would be no animosity once he arrived on their doorstep.</p><p>Flying felt strange these days, like his wings wouldn’t fully stretch and were sticky or somehow constricted. He shook off the sensation by walking under the shade of the trees. It was pleasant, nothing like Purgatory. Deep greens and cool, living earth; good enough to thrive in. He paused, with a twitch of his head, considering.</p><p>
  <em>A good place for roots. But not good enough. Closer. Get closer to town.</em>
</p><p>He was just beginning to answer the call of the idea that had taken hold when a familiar rumble of a deep engine startled him. It was the reason he was here and yet a panic flooded his system that he couldn’t understand but nevertheless obeyed, and he took off into the underbrush and didn’t look back.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Later, when the fog cleared again, he found them at a motel in the middle of a case. He wasn’t surprised that Dean was shocked to see him. He surprised himself to be indoors out of the sunlight and starlight, confined, <em>surrounded. </em>Thoughts that made even less sense than his missing time.</p><p>Instead of focusing on his own confusion he sat at the table with them, and tried to explain where he’d been.</p><p>“How exactly are you sitting here right now?” Dean asked, and if there was something accusatory in his tone, Cas couldn’t blame him.</p><p>“I’m not entirely sure. I… don’t know where I’ve been. Or how I got here, really.”</p><p>“You don’t know?” Dean parroted back.</p><p>“Things have been unclear since I got back. I think something might be...” <em>wrong.</em> He choked up, his throat closed on him and he couldn’t force the word out no matter how hard he tried. After a moment he changed tack. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come and find you, but I’m here now, and I am glad to see you both, my friends.”</p><p>“You too, Cas. God, I can’t believe you made it back! This is amazing, right?” Sam said, and turned to Dean.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah pretty amazing,” Dean replied. He looked wounded and Cas kicked himself for always leaving, and never having an explanation to offer.</p><p>He excused himself to the bathroom, wanting to take the time to clean up, unsure as to why he’d lived unshaven and covered in so much dirt for so long. Being around Sam and Dean, who looked almost pristine in comparison, he became hyper aware of his scruffiness. He heard them talking from the bathroom.</p><p>
  <em>“You do see something... severely wrong here, right?” Dean asked. “I'm saying something else happened. Do you see the shape he’s in now? I mean, there’s no way there isn’t something fishy going on here. No way.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“All right. So, who... or what got him out?” Sam replied.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Exactly.”</em>
</p><p>Cas paused in scrubbing himself clean, feeling an itch of discomfort further under his skin than he could get at. He too, was concerned with what had prevented him from returning.</p><p>
  <em>Not important. Don’t ask questions.</em>
</p><p>However uneasy it made him, he never managed to focus on it for long.</p><p>Their awkwardness reached new heights once he was cleaned and changed, but there wasn’t long to focus on it. Sam’s ringing phone roused them all from their thoughts and lack of conversation.</p><p>“Mrs. Tran where the hell have you… wait, slow down, slow down.” Sam’s face fell and then grew tight with anger. Just like that Cas’s disappearance was not the biggest problem, Kevin’s was.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>While he assisted in the rescue of the prophet something Dean said rang clear as a bell through his mind, almost knocking the wind out of him. <em>“You’re not all the way back, are you?”</em></p><p>He dismissed it in the moment, and raised his wings to their full span to intimidate Crowley and force him to leave. His energy crackled through the room, lighting up the place and cracking one of God’s tablets into two. It didn’t <em>look</em> like a weakened display of power but to Cas it felt wrong. It <em>smelled</em> wrong. The zing of ozone was undercut by something rotting; the shrill sound of angel grace was dampened and muffled, as though it sounded from underground; his wings rose weakly and unsteadily, taking all his strength to open them past something that tried to keep them moulded to his back.</p><p>No-one noticed how much it drained him, but he drew into himself once the threat was over and felt like a cat licking his wounds.</p><p>Dean found him by the edge of the parking lot and they appraised each other at a distance. There was a storm around Dean, unspoken words caught up and waiting to spill, anger maybe, or distrust. The air needed to be cleared, Cas could see that at least even if he was unsure about many other things.</p><p>“That was a bonehead move back there. You could have gotten yourself killed. Why didn't you wait for me?”</p><p>The familiar argumentative tone was soothing, a dance Cas knew how to partake in. “Well, I didn't get killed. And it worked.” His reassuring half-smile didn’t seem to help Dean feel better.</p><p>“And if it didn't?”</p><p>“It would have been my problem.” One of many, but his alone.</p><p>“Well, that's not the way I see it.” Dean clenched his jaw, close to pouting.</p><p>“Hey, everything isn't your responsibility. Getting me out of Purgatory wasn't your responsibility, and yet you did.” Dean didn’t look convinced, and Cas squinted at him, wondering where the problem really lay. “Do you really not remember?”</p><p>Dean scoffed, laughing in derision. “I lived it, Cas. Okay, I know what happened.”</p><p>“No. No, you think you know. You remembered it the way you needed to.” Did he, or was something else covering Dean’s mind too? What could have that kind of power?</p><p>“Look, I don't need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don't need it!” Dean gestured wildly, wagging his finger at Cas and he looked like a pained child, desperate to be believe himself as well as convince the world.</p><p>“Dean. Just look at it. Really look at it.”</p><p>He found the false memory in Dean, papered over the pain of what had really happened. Only, not paper, something more sinister, alive, blocking out the light… pollen in the air, thick and heady, choking the light out of the memory.</p><p>Cas broke through the obstruction, difficult though it was. It hurt to let Dean see the truth, that he hadn’t failed to make the trip back, but that he’d let go and left Dean as soon as he smelled the scent of clean, good earth.</p><p>Dean rocked back in surprise, eyes wide. And Cas hung his head.</p><p>“See, it wasn't that I was weak. I was stronger than you. I pulled away, as soon as I could.”</p><p>“What the hell are you talking about?”</p><p>“You can't save everyone, my friend... though, you try. And I think… I think I may need you to try again now, to pull me back again.”</p><p>“Hey. Everything okay?” Sam asked, walking up with his hands in his pockets.</p><p>“Yeah. Just, uh... setting a few things straight.” It was good they were both here. He needed them both, Dean’s instincts, Sam’s knack for discovery.</p><p>He opened his mouth to say more, but something <em>flickered</em>. In a blink he was back in the gloom of Purgatory; standing in the half light of a little hollow that felt familiar, oddly conjuring a sense of alarm and fostering a sense of peace all at once.</p><p>“Where am I? How did I get here?” he demanded. He tried to move and found his feet wrapped in roots and held in place.</p><p>“You don't know? This is home, Castiel.” The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing and shrill. It sent a shiver up his spine.</p><p>“This is no home of mine. Show yourself!”</p><p>“Look down, see your hands. This is you. We are us. You are ours. You belong to us.”</p><p>The vision of the hollow shifted, and the walls were a sudden writhing mass, moving and roiling. Cas tried to recoil, the air smelled like decay and death. “I am no servant of yours. Let me go.”</p><p>“You took protection from us, used us, and then tried to abandon us. Consider these chats your repayment.”</p><p>“I don't understand.” He did, deep down, he felt the wrongness and a sickly sensation in the pit of his stomach, and something like pins and needles tingled down his spine. But he couldn’t access the memories of why he felt that way and every word spoken dragged him further away from being able to analyse what was going on.</p><p>“Tell me about your friends.”</p><p>“I have helped the Winchesters and they are beginning to open up to me once again.” He paused, biting his own tongue to keep it silent. “Why am I telling you any of this?”</p><p>“It's not your concern. Help the Winchesters, come when they call, we know from your memories they are our most dangerous adversary and the largest threat to our well being. You will speak to us regularly, so we know where danger lies, and you will never remember having done so.”</p><p>“No. I won't do that.” He tried to surge forward, ready to fight, and with a jolt took up residence back in his own body again.</p><p>He blinked away the confusion of the last few seconds where he had lost track of what Sam was saying. Nothing troubled him that he could put his finger on, so any sense of unease he felt he brushed away as a result of overexertion.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Sitting on a bed in another no-name motel, in another no-name town, on another indistinct day that Cas couldn’t tell one from the next, he picked listlessly through Dean’s belongings. He was aware in his peripheral vision of Dean watching him closely. He was always aware of them these days, where they were, what they had planned, where they intended to go next.</p><p>They had been working together on another case, and keeping busy helped him stay focused but now the case was done Sam and Dean wanted him to examine his lost memories again. It all made his skin crawl, and he missed the open air and warm sunlight and try as he might he couldn’t always convince himself that those were normal yearnings.</p><p>“How you feeling, Cas?”</p><p>“I'm fine.”</p><p>“Well, I just – I – I know that when I got puked out of Purgatory, it took me a few weeks to... find my sea legs.”</p><p>“I'm fine.” Perhaps if he said it enough, it would be true. He’d watched Sam and Dean ignore their worries and suppress their reactions for years, he could do the same, couldn't he?</p><p>“Don't get me wrong. I'm – I’m happy you're back. I’m freaking thrilled. It's just this whole mysterious disappearing thing, seems like one mother of a downside.” Dean was casual as ever but his tone betrayed his concern. Cas picked up on the nuances—the tightened jaw, the watchful expressions.</p><p>“So, what do you want me to do?” He truly hoped Dean had an answer that would satisfy the unsettled feeling in his gut.</p><p>“Maybe take a trip upstairs.”</p><p>“To Heaven?”</p><p>“Yeah, poke around, see if the God squad can't tell us what’s going on.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Look, man, I – I hate those flying-ass monkeys just as much as you do, but –”</p><p>“Dean! I said no!” The very idea filled his head with clamouring, panicked flailing, sheer and utter horror. Which was not fully explainable, and that worried him, but it was a secondary concern next to the instinct to stay as far away from prying eyes as possible.</p><p>Dean closed the distance between them and sat down. “Talk to me.”</p><p>“Dean, I... When I was... bad…” he couldn't talk about being infected with the Leviathans. His mouth wouldn’t form the words, it was abhorrent to bring it up, to draw Dean’s critical eye to those moments when he wasn’t himself, to catch his suspicion in that way. To bring to light the memory of being filled up and used by something <em>other </em>all over again. No. He wouldn’t, something told him not to. It was too dangerous, too close a call. His mind was only half on the conversation, but he realised he needed to swing his disagreement in another direction, or risk ruin.</p><p>“I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I – I – I can't go back.” There was something that might make sense to Dean. Guilt. Cas had enough of that to last a hundred lifetimes. He accrued more of it every day.</p><p>“'Cause if you do, the angels will kill you.”</p><p>He nodded his assent. They would. Kill, examine, poke, pull to pieces, steal him away....</p><p>“Well it seems like you have two choices, help us to figure things out, or take your chances up there with them. I don’t want to assume we’re your best bet but…” Dean smiled warmly at him.</p><p>“You are, of course.” Cas breathed out, glad that the tight restriction in his lungs retracted when he relaxed. “I’ll try, I’m sure I can think of something more helpful, if I search through the fog.” He tapped his head and returned Dean’s smile.</p><p>“Good, great. Sam will be thrilled, he loves research.”</p><p>Cas wracked his mind. There were flashes of places, views of fields and woods, indistinct buildings. He pulled a piece of paper towards him and focused for a long time on anything in his memories that had distinguishing features; they were revealed to him as though curtains pulled aside, the fog receding around them. Some<em>thing</em> was letting him see, just a little. Perhaps it was the Winchesters' confidence in him, helping him relax.</p><p>He wrote everything down in a list, and then flipped the pad of paper to a new page and drew some small sketches of vistas, nothing special, just images that had sprung to mind.</p><p>Cas handed his pad of paper to Sam and stood, feeling agitated. He couldn’t call what he was experiencing a headache, he was an angel, he didn’t get headaches. It just felt like pressure, a hissing noise inside his head that wouldn’t stop. A worry that turned to physical discomfort.</p><p>“I need some fresh air,” he said, abruptly. In truth he could already smell the air creeping in under the flimsy motel door. Freshly fallen rain, wet asphalt, damp grass. Petrichor filled his nostrils and drew him, like a dream, toward the exit.</p><p>
  <em>Yes, escape. Leave them. Open air, room to breathe. Gave away too much.</em>
</p><p>“You okay Cas?” Sam asked.</p><p>“Of course… this is taxing, I would like to take a break.”</p><p>“Sure, well, we’re good here, these are some good leads.” Cas turned to see Sam waving the paper and had the urge to rush forward and snatch it from his hands. His jaw clenched and he balled his hands into fists.</p><p>
  <em>Do not agitate them!</em>
</p><p>“We’ll sort this out Cas, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”</p><p>Cas nodded, terse, and swept out the door.</p><p>
  <em>Fool. Idiot. Betrayer.</em>
</p><p>“What else should I have done? Lied again?”</p><p>He found himself in the eerie hollow again, his feet stumbling over uneven earth. <em>“You report to us about them, not the other way around. They are too close! They must not discover us. You must throw them off the scent, you must deceive them.”</em></p><p>“They are too good at catching a lie, no matter what I do they see through it eventually.” It had been true when he’d eaten the souls of Purgatory, it would be true now.</p><p>
  <em>Then think of something else, some other way!</em>
</p><p>He came back to the present, breathing heavily, standing in the cooling evening air under cloudy skies, but…. not outside the motel door, where he last remembered being. He was in a thicket of woods, up to the knees in long grass that wet his clothes. His bare feet were buried in dark soil. He wiggled his toes experimentally, enjoying the squishing between his toes.</p><p>He had an idea that he needed to protect Sam and Dean from some truth, some dark secret. He wanted to share everything with them, but a creeping doubt told him that it wouldn’t be safe to do so. The sense of purpose that he was often left with after losing pockets of time stuck with him. It clung around his thoughts, seeped into his plan for moving forward. He could shield Sam and Dean from things they weren’t equipped to know, it was the right thing to do.</p><p>He picked his way back through the underbrush and found his discarded shoes. He had a vague sense that he’d taken them off to cool down, though he didn’t know why he’d have trouble regulating his temperature. He shoved feet into socks and shoes, not even stopping to think about wiping dew from his clothes or mud from his feet. It felt better anyway, carrying a small piece of outside along with him.</p><p>He returned to the motel with his outer appearance intact, and the itch below his skin somewhat relieved. He opened the door to find Dean stony faced and Sam looking worried.</p><p>“Is something wrong?” he asked as he closed the door and stepped in.</p><p>“Why don’t you tell us?” Dean replied, pushing off the counter to walk toward Cas. He held a beer loosely in one hand and gestured aggressively at Cas with the other. “You’re the one with no memory and a list of places that you <em>think</em> you remember being that are just… littered with cases of missing people and odd deaths.”</p><p>“What?” There was an angry trilling of alarm bells in his head, a tightening around his chest, and his nervous system began tingling, starting at the base of his neck and spreading outward.</p><p>Sam turned his laptop to face Cas and waved at the screen. “All those places you listed, weird things went down. And I’m… I’m only halfway through the list Cas, and then there’s all these others that aren’t place names they’re just drawings. Do you wanna tell me what I’m going to find if I keep looking?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” he said, voice tight. “That’s why I came to you for help!” His vision blurred, darkness began to creep across the edges, like dark earth closing over him. He pushed back against it, he had to keep them <em>safe. </em>He had to control this, had to control… had to not lose control, not now, not here.</p><p>“Everywhere you go there’s a trail of bodies!” Dean all but shouted. “So maybe it’s not you who needs help!”</p><p>“That’s not me!” Cas shouted back, and he knew it.</p><p>His nostrils flared but he couldn’t draw breath. His skin prickled and his lungs felt full, something crawled under his muscles and he couldn’t fully focus on what was going on around him while his vessel surged with unexplainable energy. There was a battle raging while he stood completely still, and for a moment he didn’t know which side he was on. Was he fighting the Winchesters or was he fighting to protect them from something else?</p><p>“Isn’t it? You sure about that?” Dean asked.</p><p>“We’re just saying,” Sam interrupted with a glare at his brother. “Maybe there’s more we need to know, to get the full picture. Help us out here, you have to have some idea.”</p><p>“Maybe I was there to investigate the deaths, I do do that you know, I am on the side of good.” Being defensive was good, being angry was good, it kept him in control.</p><p>“Don’t you think you’d remember if it was something that easy? It’s looking incredibly shady, right, so please, give us something.” Dean’s voice turned pleading, and Cas watched the anger burn out replaced by worry and concern.</p><p>He straightened. An angry Winchester was better than a curious one, or a worried one, or a persistent one. In anger they might abandon him, in the middle of a fight they might not look for him. He had to keep this argument going, it would get them off his back. The shift to full blown fight wasn’t unusual for them, they wouldn’t question it—or so he hoped.</p><p><em>Yes, good. Push them away.</em> The crawling, wiggling, sense faded, his lungs drew breath. He had a chance to make this work, if he could keep them at arm’s length, he could keep them safe. <em>Yes, keep us safe.</em></p><p>“I don’t know if I’d tell you Dean, you’ve never been that good at believing what I say. As evident by the fact you don’t believe me now. Perhaps I’d be better on my own, or with Heaven after all.”</p><p>“Really. You’d put your trust in those flying dick bags over us? Even after everything you said earlier?”</p><p>“I might, if they were a little more civil than you. Which isn’t hard.” Cas squinted at him, his focus on the one Winchester he knew how to piss off more than the other.</p><p>“Wait, hang on, this is getting out of hand,” Sam interrupted.</p><p>“No let him finish, he clearly has a lot to say. Unless you just want to fly out the door right now? After all that is what you’re good at,” Dean spat, slamming his beer onto the table as he spoke.</p><p>“You know why it’s so easy to leave you, Dean? Because you turn against everyone at the slightest provocation. I come to you for help and you grow suspicious before we even know what’s happening. You don’t view me as a friend, you view me as a liability.” He huffed an annoyed breath out his nose and turned away. “Well let me relieve you of that responsibility, I’m not your problem anymore.”</p><p>“We can still solve this,” came Sam’s plea. “There’s still a case here that we need to get to the bottom of.”</p><p>Cas paused at the doorway, wondering what to say to stop Sam looking into things any further. “I was mistaken Sam, I don’t think those memories are even real. I’ve been watching a lot of news reports, and picking things up on angel radio, I must have got my signals crossed. Put your energy to better use, keep looking for the other tablets, help Kevin, listen to Dean—he clearly knows best.”</p><p>He held up his palm and a thick cloud of something sticky floated from his skin, wafted across the room. It made Sam and Dean cough, and rub at their eyes. He strode past Sam and grabbed the pad of paper, closed the tabs open on the laptop, and walked out the room before they could stop him.</p><p>The last they’d remember was an argument, an uneasy parting of the ways. They would be safe if he stayed away, and they had no reason to look for him now. It must have been the same trick that had clouded Dean’s memory of Purgatory, though this new skill was something he didn’t understand.</p><p>
  <em>No need to understand, just act.</em>
</p><p>Cas sighed in relief, glad to be out and away. He’d got them off his trail, they were walking away. It was time for him to sever ties and do the same.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Moments of lucidity became sparse in the days that followed, he came and went like the tide. Breathe in and he’d fall under some spell and wake up somewhere else. Breathe out and he’d see cold earth, dead leaves, and wander in a daze, senses on alert, always moving, feeling watched and like something was ready to pounce.</p><p>And then, like mist parting over still waters, it passed. He stood in sunlight, tilted his face to the heavens. He blinked in surprise at being above ground, and then dismissed the thought like a passing stranger. He was Castiel, angel of the lord, of course he walked in the light.</p><p>Three days turned into a week, turned into two. The realisation that no-one on earth missed him, no-one was looking for him--that he really had driven the Winchesters away--sank deep into his bones. Standing in a cold wind, it blew right through him. It whistled through his core and sang to something else that lived below his skin. This world wasn’t meant for him, he didn’t deserve it and he wasn’t owed it, nor was he allowed it.</p><p>As the fog took him Cas didn’t even try to fight it. He welcomed it, sinking below a soft sheen of dew drops and filtered light to look out on the world from the hollow-heart that lived inside him. At first he told himself that it was just a dream, a way of protecting his mind from the horrors of existence by floating through the days in a haze.</p><p>Then he told himself he was watching and waiting, learning about whatever sickness plagued him so that he would have information and find a way to oust it.</p><p>Later he told himself nothing, as there wasn’t room in his mind for anything but screaming.</p><p>He caught glimpses of his hand in a woman’s hair, dragging her towards a writhing mass on the ground, throwing her in to be devoured.</p><p>A man, fighting him tooth and nail, before being subdued by a head wound that knocked him unconscious.</p><p>People being overcome, begging for mercy. Dark earth devouring bodies until nothing remained but bones.</p><p>He watched from behind eyes that would not close. He heard with ears that picked up every hitch of breath and every whispered plea. He railed against the barrier in his mind that he could not break, trapped behind thorns and wrapped in vines. He listened to the fervoured voice of <em>want need take devour</em> that clamoured for more, hungered for flesh. An addict caught in throes of desperation.</p><p>And so it went, for days beyond count.</p><p>On a full moon, on a clear night, he stood at the edge of a field, under the shade of trees. There was a school nearby, the sounds and lights of a suburban neighborhood filtering through the night air.</p><p>He scented the earth, dug down into fresh wet dirt and dragged it aside to create a trench. He heard cars, teenagers calling to one another, and a chill went through him.</p><p>“Too close,” he muttered.</p><p>
  <em>No, just close enough. We can thrive, will live here, feed here. Grow well, with bodies for the harvest.</em>
</p><p>“No!”</p><p>But even as he spoke, his left hand raised. His palm opened, and sharp spikes of pain radiated down from the base of his neck. He was frozen, compelled into immobility. The pain coursed through him in waves, and the veins under his skin lit up blue, grace-like but with trickles of black pulsing through them.</p><p>The pain spiked at his wrist, pushed past the barrier of thinner bones, and a stem burst forth from the centre of his hand. It erupted upward in a bloom, a shoot that opened into pale iridescent petals that unfolded until they covered the flat of his hand. The stamen grew larger, pulsing with eerie light, black swirling under the bulbous head.</p><p>Just when he thought he couldn’t take another moment of the pain it burst open, and black and blue glittering pollen drifted into the night air, caught on the breeze, and wisped away from him. It swirled in eddies, until it spiralled down as if caught in the currents of a whirlpool and settled into the small trench that he’d made. It seeped into the ground and immediately coalesced into strange lumps that writhed and grew in size. It dug into the earth, burrowing under, as small pale roots wiggled down to disappear underground. Black fibrous shoots increased in size until they curled around and over themselves and the small hollow was full.</p><p>The flower on his palm wilted, and he gasped in pain as the shoots that drove it through his skin retreated back up his arm. It stung, but the open wound on his hand closed up in a matter of seconds. He slowly lowered to a crouch, pulled like a puppet, and his hands brushed the earth back over the still growing plant below.</p><p>When he turned to walk away he felt hollow inside, a deep ache that was already being filled by something black and roiling.</p><p>When he took flight, it was with a growing dread in his heart that he couldn’t quiet.</p><p>When he remembered it later he would see himself catching a falling blossom on his hand, and nothing else, just as he had every other time.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Did someone ask for the season 8 crypt scene with added tentacle-vines?</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The abandoned building stood in swathes of gray. The windows were dark, lidless eyes in the gloom that stared out into the night, watching and waiting for civilization to come back and inhabit the space.</p><p>Cas had time to ponder the parallels of his own existence. He was watching from within his own body from eyes that wouldn’t blink. Thick, black tendrils curled around him where he was stuck in the recesses of his own mind. They pulsed and writhed, tightening to choke him if he tried to vie for control.</p><p>His body was covered with wriggling black and deep green veins. They crawled under his skin, branching out from his own veins and arteries. He could feel how they probed him, checking his resistance, learning how to contain and corral him. They seeped into the layers of his muscles and infected everything they touched.</p><p>It was poison, pure and simple. Paralysing, sickening.</p><p>
  <em>Why did you bring us here?</em>
</p><p>Did he? Was it his will that lead them to this town, this place? What could have called him so strongly that he could break through the restraints of the parasite?</p><p>His footsteps were muffled, like walking on soft packed dirt, as his body was puppeteered into the building. His shoes were caked in mud, but more than just that they were cushioned with squashy coils of vines. The shoots grew from the soles of his feet, where they’d punched out the soles of his shoes. His own weight on the vines pushed them sharply into places they grew from. It hurt, but it was distant. Everything about his physical body was distant and it was strange to feel loss for something that wasn’t gone.</p><p>An engine rumbled out in the darkness and then came to a halt.</p><p><em>Winchester, </em>the voice inside him spat, <em>you tricked us.</em></p><p>If Cas could have turned and left on the spot, he would have. The last thing he needed was Sam and Dean here, when his energy was spent and he couldn’t be sure if he would be strong enough to protect them.</p><p>He felt his control slip back into place right down to the tips of his fingers, but under the skin of his throat something rippled and he tried not to choke as a vine wriggled its way around his neck, circling him tight. A collar, invisible, but so very close to wringing him of breath and life and control.</p><p>Dean arrived first in the old, tomb-like room Cas had found himself in, because of course he did; Sam was probably somewhere outside, manning the sightlines, checking perimeters. Dean always stepped first into harm's way.</p><p>“Cas?” Dean’s voice was incredulous, disbelieving. “Son of a bitch, it really is you.”</p><p>“Hello, Dean.” This was customary, easy. Exactly as it should be. The living organism twisting inside his bones let him follow this protocol. It felt like betrayal, to deceive Dean further. But then, he already had so many times, what was one more? He sighed. There was an ache deep in his being, and not just from having another life-form squeezed inside a vessel made for one.</p><p>“Wanna tell me what you’re doing here?”</p><p>“The same as you, I imagine,” Cas replied, casting his eyes around the room, flicking over various treasures in what he imagined could only be a crypt. “Something over there is warded against angels.” He pointed and Dean turned to look.</p><p>“Well that’s probably what Crowley’s goons are after.” Dean levelled him with a look, taking in his disheveled appearance. “So all those weird deaths, and those demons ganked, was that you? Is this what you’re here for, too?”</p><p>“I suppose it must be.” He licked his lips and cocked his head, trying for aloofness. Dean needed to run, to save himself; selfishly he just wanted Dean to help…</p><p>“Is chasing demons your thing now?”</p><p>“It isn’t your concern. Let me pass and we can both be on our way.” He wished he had more pieces of information as to what had led Dean here, so he could play along better.</p><p>“Cas don’t pull that crap with me, something is wrong… with you, with this whole stinking situation. Just talk to me.”</p><p>As he tried to shove past, Dean grabbed his sleeve. Black pulsed along the veins and flickered across the skin of his arm, and it wasn’t Cas that tilted his head and looked at Dean’s arm like it was an affront and Dean an enemy.</p><p>“Come on, man, this ain’t you, it doesn’t have to be like this.” Dean blocked his path again. “We ran into this angel, Samandriel, he said he saw you, said you left him for dead. Now tell me if I’m wrong but after all your guilt over ransacking Heaven, that doesn’t sound like something you’d do willingly.”</p><p>That gave Cas pause. He had no memory of seeing an angel, no inkling of why, or when. How many more secrets and how much more damage had been done in his name? “What else did this angel say?”</p><p>Dean’s breathing quickened, his pulse picking up speed. Cas heard it, and smelled the sweat that stank of adrenalin; Dean was gearing up for something.</p><p>“He said you were being controlled by… I don’t know, he didn’t know, by <em>something.</em> Said it was messing with your brain, your controls, whatever it is that makes angels tick. Said it was… feeding off you, somehow.”</p><p>The room flickered, the grey-lit hollow swam before his eyes. <em>If he gets his hands on us, he will kill us all.</em></p><p>
  <em> <strong>I can reason with Dean, he’s a good man!</strong> </em>
</p><p>“I can’t let you stop me, Dean.”</p><p>“Can’t or won’t?” Dean’s words were angry and clipped, and Cas silently begged for him to get angry enough to walk away, to leave while he still had the chance.</p><p>“Does it matter?”</p><p>“What got you out of Purgatory, Cas? What saved you? Because I don’t think it’s a good thing.”</p><p>Cas suppressed a shudder as Dean crowded close enough to touch. He needed Dean to realise his suspicions of what was wrong with Cas wouldn’t lead to anywhere good. There was too much to hide, too much he was guilty of, and there wasn’t enough room to keep it secret, not with Dean so near, not when he was faced with two arguments at once, not when he fought within and without. He was going to slip up, he was going to lose the control he did have.</p><p>
  <em> <strong>There has to be another way.</strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>You have obeyed us a hundred, a thousand times, Castiel. You can do this too. Kill him.</em>
</p><p>“Be honest with me -- for the first time since you've been back, and I can help you.”</p><p>Cas’s blade dropped into his hand, smooth cool metal under his palm and he didn’t want it. Not any of it.</p><p>“Cas. Cas, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but if you're in there and you can hear me, you don't have to do this.” There was a cacophony in his mind, and it drowned out the sound of his strike being parried as Dean knocked the blow aside. “Cas!”</p><p>
  <em> <strong>This isn’t right</strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Do you realise what he could do to us?</em>
</p><p>
  <em> <strong>I won’t hurt Dean!</strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yes. You will. You are.</em>
</p><p>The empty hollow disappeared from his vision but the force that had dragged him out of the present was still in control. His limbs were caught and welded in its snare. His arm struck out again, and Dean blocked, and stumbled.</p><p>His skin was puckered with tendrils and ever-shifting veins. When he moved the inky black accumulated and then ebbed away to the next joint, the next muscle, moving so quickly that he could hardly keep track of it. He pounded on the inside of his mind, on the walls of his own body to try and get free. It was going to hurt Dean, and then probably Sam, and he couldn’t stop it.</p><p>“Cas, fight this! This is not you! Fight it!”</p><p>
  <em> <strong>What have you done to me?!</strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Just relax, Castiel. Let your vessel do what we made it for, what it’s been perfected for. Do you have any idea what you’ve done out there? There's blood everywhere, and it's on your hands. Do you think he would even forgive you, if he knew? With us you can be safe forever, victorious forever. We give you purpose, us! Not him!</em>
</p><p>As the fight inside his mind raged harder than the fight in the room, it gave Dean chance to place his hand on Cas’s shoulder. Cas’s body threw it off and backhanded Dean, who catapulted across the room to slam into the wall face first. Cas moved and it was like a dream, fluid and seamless, and in a flash he was on top of Dean.</p><p>He threw punch after punch, watched Dean’s skin split under the blows until blood welled up. The thing inside him screamed for it, like a hound on the scent, it clamoured for more. Cas gripped Dean’s forearm and twisted. Dean’s radius snapped, the bones shifted under his hand, as easy as breaking a twig. Dean yelled, fell to his knees, and Cas wondered if it would end once Dean didn’t seem like a threat.</p><p>It didn’t, and there was nothing but the blows, and the way Dean’s body broke beneath him.</p><p>Hit after blow after punch, rained down onto Dean’s face. Time slowed down with only the sounds, the spray of blood, and the grunts of pain that Dean made to focus on.</p><p>“You want to walk away from this, from me? Then you’re gonna have to kill me first.” Dean’s words were thick, choked and spat from a swollen face.</p><p>The thing inside him bristled at the words, and vines coiled down his arms. They burst forth from his palms and shot forward, wrapped around Dean’s torso and upper arms to haul him closer. Dean cried out, struggling, but they were stronger. They wrapped around his neck, tightening, and Cas felt the one that had crawled under the skin of his own neck shiver in tandem.</p><p>
  <em> <strong>Please</strong> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>End this, Castiel.</em>
</p><p>“Cas. Cas. I know you're in there.” Dean stretched forward with his unbroken hand and Cas watched it from behind shuttered eyes. The vines thickened, thrumming with power and ready to strangle the life from Dean’s body.</p><p>“I know you can hear me. Cas... It's me. We're family. We need you. I need you.” Dean was desperate, and Cas understood the emotion rolling from him. He felt it too.</p><p>
  <em>Castiel, it is them or us.</em>
</p><p>If that were true, couldn’t he choose to side with the Winchesters, with humanity? They would help him, no matter what he had become. Family. Friends. His chosen people. They would help him end this. He was not alone.</p><p>The thing inside tried to convince Cas he had been abandoned by them. But he stopped listening. He pushed past the thoughts of dark places and his own inadequacies, he leaned into the tension in his body and then relaxed. Relaxed into what held him, until it gave, and then he drove forward and seized control.</p><p>He hauled Dean closer. Pulled on the vines, controlled them. With one concentrated effort he sucked every last disgusting part of them back inside his vessel, biting down the cry of the pain in his arms and hands.</p><p>The room seemed suddenly brighter without their black presence taking up space and sucking in light. He reached for Dean who flinched back, cringing, begging and asking him not to.</p><p>He lightly touched Dean’s face and searched for a sliver of his grace. He healed Dean, but it weakened his newfound hold over his own body. The thing thrived on his grace, and it chased it to the surface of his body, tried to follow it out to the tips of his fingers. As Dean was made whole, his control slipped.</p><p>“Dean, I can’t hold it!”</p><p>Dean’s gaze slid past him and Cas turned to see why. Sam’s hand clamped on top of his own, a metal cuff snapped into place around his wrist and it stopped the grace and the thing chasing on its heels in its tracks. Dean stood in one fluid movement and shoved Cas’s other hand toward Sam who quickly locked the second cuff into place.</p><p>He sagged, defeated and glad of it, dropping to his knees in the dust and grime.</p><p>“Just in time, Sammy.”</p><p>“What the hell happened?”</p><p>“I think Cas here has some explaining to do…”</p><p>They both turned to him, and Cas opened his mouth, but it wasn’t him who spoke. <em>“You cannot hold us, cannot defeat us. The angel is ours, and the rest of you will soon follow.”</em></p><p>Dean looked at Sam, who shrugged. Dean’s fist flying toward his face was the last thing he saw.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The place they took him to was completely alien to Castiel. He looked around cautiously as the Winchesters dragged him underground. From the outside it looked prison-like, a mass of concrete and imposing architecture. He was surprised by the interior, surprisingly decadent and elaborate, and he spotted homely touches, and picked up the brothers scents. Did they live here? Was it safe, for a being like him?</p><p>The elation the parasite felt at the prospect of stepping down into deep dark earth was not something Cas shared. He felt magical wards wash over him with every step further inside the walls. He knew and understood--this place could be his graveyard, not a place to thrive.</p><p>Trapped, all over again.</p><p>They chained him down in a windowless, cold and dreary room. There was a devil’s trap on the floor and rings set into the walls--every tool needed to contain a malicious entity. The kind of entity they now assumed he was. A sharp stab of sudden panic flared in his chest at the idea of being left in the dark, alone with the thing that wanted to control him and use him, with a thing that grew stronger underground. Would they abandon him here?</p><p>Were these people even his friends anymore? Did he have anyone left in Heaven or on Earth that would come for him? Did they even know he was still in here?</p><p><em>I would not abandon you,</em> it hissed to him. <em>I would be loyal. </em></p><p>He didn’t want to give in to the thing, to come to rely on it, but if they left him alone… it would wear him down eventually. He wavered, teetering forward on the chair they had thrust him in. The swell of emotion gave him a burst of strength and he clamoured for control, trying to reach out.</p><p>Sam lingered in the doorway, looking back at him with worry. “I’ll leave the light on. And… we’ll fix this Cas, we always fix it.”</p><p>He managed a nod and opened his mouth to speak. Some force deep within him snapped his jaw shut and a writhing mass of vines and curling roots filled his mouth, crawling up from his throat to stifle his speech and still his tongue. He moaned as oozing thick sap seeped into the spaces between his teeth. It was bitter on his tongue and bled from the corners of his lips.</p><p>Sam nodded back, his expression flickering between disgust and concern.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He had presumed being underground would strengthen the hold the plant had over him, and though it grew angrier, and more volatile, its sway over him waned. His ruined shoes had been discarded and he sat barefoot, moving his feet over the cold floor. It made his position seem even more vulnerable, and he wondered when he’d become so accustomed to humanity's clothing choices that being without certain things felt <em>wrong.</em></p><p>Days passed slowly, and he was aware every second of the crawling, wriggling, gnawing things beneath his skin. Even his own thoughts were hijacked by the voice of the entity inside him that would counter every good thought with derision or paranoia.</p><p>The monotony of the grey walled room offered no distraction. Alone with something that tormented him from the inside he started to wish for the oblivion that settled in when the parasite had been fully in control. The stifling feeling of being trapped inside his own vessel was like nails on a chalkboard, grating to his mind and soul.</p><p>The parasite grew to realise there was nothing for it down in this bunker. No dirt, no decaying mounds to find nourishment in, no life to steal. No way back to the surface. A thick layer of concrete between them and the sun, layers and layers of earth too deep to dig through and too heavy to thrust aside. Cas had given up struggling against the chains and the viney stranglehold around his throat, but the plant kept testing its bounds—always pushing. It strove against the restrictions pinning both his grace and it inside his vessel. It moved sluggishly around his body looking for a way out. There were times he watched the exposed skin of his hands turn completely black and green as it surged below the dermal layers and veiny protrusions crawled up his arms.</p><p>After days alone, stuck in a vessel that it could not escape from, it turned suddenly inward. It sank thorns and feelers into the very centre, the very essence of Cas. It cut deep, a blade to his being, forcing a scraping, raw, animal sound from his throat.</p><p>The Winchesters came running at his scream, entered the room with weapons drawn and from his place writhing in the chair Cas saw them breathe a sigh of relief at finding him where they had left him.</p><p>For him, there was no relief at all. The pain continued, and the plant’s anger spurred it to bury deeper, wriggle further, plumb his grace for every last drop of energy.</p><p>He listened to them regroup in the hallway outside his prison. It was a distraction from the burning, terrible itch that he couldn’t scratch and he latched onto the comforting familiarity of their voices.</p><p>“We can’t keep going like this Sam. How much of Cas do you even think is left in there?”</p><p>
  <em> <strong>All of me, I’m right here!</strong> </em>
</p><p>“You can’t be thinking of giving up…?”</p><p>“Do you know how powerful something has to be to hijack an angel? We've looked at every book, every scroll, every tome that we can think of and we’ve found squat. I’m not sure what else to do apart from make him secure and hope it doesn’t get out.”</p><p>“We can't just leave him to rot!”</p><p>“Do you have a better idea? It’s better to keep that thing inside him down here than let it loose. Cas would want us to stop him, to stop the death and destruction. We owe him that much at least, not to be used as a puppet for that thing.”</p><p>“And what if we can't contain him forever?” Sam replied, voice wound tight with worry.</p><p>“Then it'll have to go through us.”</p><p>No, Cas thought, wild with worry. He wouldn’t hurt them. <em>You will,</em> came the reply, <em>we will.</em></p><p>“That’s not a good plan, Dean.”</p><p>“Best I’ve got right now.”</p><p>“The Men of Letters are… they’re archivists right, collectors. If something wasn’t in this world to be found, they’d have no record of it and no-one ever went to Purgatory and came back before you and Cas. So I admit we’ve found nothing so far but… but we’re hunters Dean, we find a way where there hasn’t been one before.”</p><p>“You think we, as hunters, can outsmart something that can survive undetected in an angel?”</p><p>“Why not? We’ve come up against tougher odds before. Let’s just put the books away and use our initiative, go back to hunter instincts instead of relying on books that don’t tell us anything helpful. Let’s look at what we do know, instead of what we don’t.”</p><p>“What we know is that thing is powerful as hell and hurting Cas. What I know is that if we’re the last line of defense then… then we throw everything we have—every trick, every cleansing ritual—at that <em>thing</em> until it gets the hell out of our friend.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>There was a pause, long and stagnating, and then Sam spoke, quieter than before. “This might hurt.”</p><p>“The worst things usually do,” Dean replied.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They sliced into his flesh until they could pull out some of the wriggling, crawling vine beneath. They cut a swathe of it away, stuffed it into a jar, and Cas watched the hole they’d made slowly heal while the thing inside him raged and writhed in pain.</p><p>Whatever they were doing to the part they had taken away, the plant seemed to be able to feel it.</p><p>
  <em>Murderers. Torturers. They cut us! Salt us! Castiel, end them, save us!</em>
</p><p>He ignored the voice by sheer force of will, but it didn’t seem to care that he could do nothing anyway.</p><p>Sam sat with him at times, and in between his screams and the delirious moments where the plant wrenched back control, they found time to talk.</p><p>“I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you of this, Sam. I wish Dean hadn’t been so badly hurt at my hands.”</p><p>“He’s fine, you healed him up. Good as new, right?”</p><p>“But he’s hardly been to visit me, which I understand, but I am sorry.”</p><p>Sam fidgeted with the book in his hand. “It’s the guilt, you know how he gets. Takes on the weight of the world, thinks it’s his job to fix everything. Looking at you like this is just a reminder.”</p><p>“What does he have to feel guilty about? I’m the one who almost killed him.”</p><p>“He’s pissed at himself that we didn’t do more when we last saw you, we knew something wasn’t right but we just... let it go? He’s taking it hard.” Sam got up to check the restraints again, a daily routine that Cas had become used to.</p><p>“I didn't want to walk away like that, I thought I was protecting you... I didn't understand, I just felt like you were in danger. I see now, it made me push you away for its own ends.” His eyes watched Sam carefully, but it wasn’t him piloting the movements. Sam seemed to realise this and stepped back hastily, wiping his hands on his pants.</p><p>“We thought maybe it was Heaven calling the shots… now he’s kicking himself for not seeing it for what it was.”</p><p>“He was angry. I don’t blame you for putting space between us.”</p><p><em>Maybe you should blame them,</em> it hissed, <em>they don’t care enough, not like we do. They would hurt you rather than save you. You’ll see.</em></p><p>“That’s the thing though,” Sam said, sitting back down and leaning forward. “We don’t know why we did. It’s not exactly like us to let something go when there’s a case at hand.”</p><p>Cas thought back over their last meeting, and it was like a haze before his eyes, a cloud... with a jolt he recalled the pollen that had flown from his hands. “Sam... I think <em>it </em>may have done something to your memories, made you forget what you should have been doing.”</p><p>Sam looked at him in alarm. “Really? That would make sense but, how?”</p><p>“I’m not sure, I understand so little of what is inside me I don't--” he looked away, swallowed hard. “Dean also forgot about my disappearance after Purgatory, it all adds up. It’s done this more than once. It doesn’t want you to know about me.”</p><p>“Well it’s a bit late for that now. Can’t outsmart us forever.” Sam smiled tightly. “We caught up with you in the end, It just took us a while—too long—to realise we were looking in the wrong places.”</p><p>Cas considered this with a faint smile. They hadn’t wanted to leave him, and now the parasite had the exact opposite of what it wanted, and that in itself seemed like a good thing for him. Hope blossomed in his chest and with it a faint flower burst forth, turning into powder in the air and settling on his lap. He barely noticed, didn’t care, too wrapped up in the feeling of relief. They wouldn't abandon him<em>.</em> “So how did you find me?”</p><p>Sam stared at him with wide eyes, following the trail of pollen-dust until it stopped moving. “Uhh, there were, well.” He scratched at the back of his head and then busied himself collecting the pile of pollen from Cas’s lap into a small vial. “What we thought were demonic signs, actually. And once I noticed a pattern we thought it best to investigate. Then we started finding footage of you in security tapes, some eye witness accounts. We just always got there a little too late. Until the last time.”</p><p>Cas tried to access the memories that were cloudy and obscured, and it brought on a swift headache and black veins crawled agitatedly across his skin. He remembered screaming, struggling bodies being dragged along, the sickening sounds of flesh being devoured. He gasped, teeth clenched, as a root flicked around inside his mouth like a second tongue.</p><p>Once he could speak, his desperation bled into the words. “I don't know... Sam I don't know what else I've done, it's all a blur. I think I caused pain, so much pain.”</p><p>“We'll figure it out, we'll help you.”</p><p><em>Whatever they offer, it is not help, Castiel</em>.</p><p>But he was done taking heed of its words. It only lied.</p><p>“How?”</p><p>Sam gripped his shoulder, only pulling away as Cas felt something twitch along his neck. “We have a plan, Dean’s working on it right now. You just have to trust us a little while longer, alright?”</p><p>Cas nodded through gritted teeth. Whatever they had planned, it couldn’t be worse than this.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The room they dragged him to several days later was much like the one he’d been held in, except for the open vent in the ceiling.</p><p>And the construction underneath it. That was definitely different. A metal contraption that was part makeshift platform, and part horrifying restraint point. Cas dug his heels in but with the warded cuffs and his weakened state Sam and Dean were able to hoist him onto the platform. It was made out of a metal grill, with a large hollow space underneath his feet, and a pole welded to the centre. As his eyes adjusted to the light in the room he realised he wasn’t standing atop a hollow space at all--it was stacked with firewood.</p><p>His bare feet pressed into the grid of metal and he shifted to alleviate the strain on his soles. Unease crawled across his skin, something didn’t feel right.</p><p>“This’ll help Cas. It’s gonna suck, but… we think it’ll fix your, y’know, <em>problem.” </em>Dean gestured vaguely at his body, but kept eye contact the entire time.</p><p>“Yes, the parasite, I understand Dean. You mustn’t let it loose.”</p><p>“We do have to get it out of you though,” Sam said with a grim smile.</p><p>“I may be the only thing containing it! If it gets free of me, it could be too powerful to fight.” He pulled helplessly against Sam’s hands as he was unchained and his arms swiftly pulled behind the metal pole where the cuffs were reattached, leaving him with no leverage and nowhere to go.</p><p>Dean scowled. “See, we don’t know if that’s you or that <em>thing</em> talking, and I’m not taking any more chances.” Dean leaned forward, stepped up onto the raised metal platform and slammed his forearm over Cas’s chest. “You’re gonna leave our friend—unharmed!—whether you like it or not.”</p><p>“Dean,” Cas began, unsure what to say. He struggled in his bindings, trying to find a more comfortable way to stand, and alleviate the pressure of Dean’s forearm on his chest.</p><p>“Save it,” Dean snapped. “I built this thing myself, it’ll hold.”</p><p>Cas knew how stubborn they were once a course of action had been decided. He looked on in dismay, assessing the situation. With his predicament, the set up atop the mound of firewood, the stacks of more fresh cut wood lining the walls… it all led to one conclusion.</p><p>They were going to burn him.</p><p>Like the heretics of old, the cruel fate humans inflicted upon one another when they feared witchcraft and God's wrath. Cleanse the spirit, cast the devils out. Kill the evil.</p><p>Sam advanced on him with a knife and he twisted to get away from it, an animal reaction, one he could barely control—and maybe he wasn’t the one in control. Sam grimaced in apology, or sympathy but the chain held fast and Cas couldn’t move away from the blade.</p><p>“You don’t want them on, trust me,” he said, as he cut through every single one of Cas’s garments. Coat, suit jacket, shirt, pants, underwear. It all fell away under Sam’s practiced hand.</p><p>“Wait, you don’t have to do this,” he began.</p><p>Sam gently touched his arm, looked like he might be about to say something, and the thing inside him revolted at the touch. It threw itself into control and sneered, baring Cas’s teeth. Sam lurched back.</p><p>
  <em>“You cannot beat us, your friend will die if you do this and it will be for nothing. Let us go and we might let you live.”</em>
</p><p>“That’s a lot of mights and maybes and empty threats, when you’re the one tied to that pole.” Dean replied, flicking his lighter open to reveal the tiny flame. “You seem a little worried, I wonder why?”</p><p>
  <em>“You would burn him, just to see me ruined?”</em>
</p><p>Dean’s face was a hard and stony scowl. He didn’t dignify it with an answer and the plant’s control wavered enough for Cas to gasp a breath, grit his teeth and nod. “Do it.”</p><p>He wanted it gone, whether he lived or died as result. He had housed this malicious thing for far too long.</p><p>The wood beneath his feet smoked in fits and starts, little gusts of thick, cloying woodsmoke from fresh cut branches.</p><p>The plant panicked in response to the threat, seizing up control of every crevice of him all over again. It sank into his veins and swept through his blood, and deposited new shoots into his limbs, muscle, sinew. He even felt it trying to crack through to the marrow of his bones.</p><p>He hacked, gasping, head tipped back and chin lifted, he stared at the vent above his head. Dean was shouting but he couldn’t hear the words. Wasn’t sure he’d be comforted even if he could.</p><p>He missed the moment the wood caught, the flames licking along the kindling and starting to heat the bigger pieces in the pile. Over the tumultuous noise of the plant whipped into a frenzy he didn’t hear the crackle of the small fire beneath his feet, or the snaps and pops of the bundles as they hissed and began to burn.</p><p>He felt it though, the hot smoke and steam that rose from undried wood releasing its moisture. His feet caught the first sparks as they flew, and he winced, jerked against the chains and the hold of the possession. He still couldn’t expand his chest, the parasite held him too tightly. He just wanted one more lungful of air, just in case it was his last.</p><p>The fire grew and his feet became uncomfortably hot, the metal grew more searing with every second that passed. He yelled through gritted teeth, twisting against the pole. With monumental effort he pried his jaw apart.</p><p>A small sliver of air made it into his lungs. It was enough to speak, just barely.</p><p>“Sam, Dean, please. It hurts. It’s me, and it hurts.”</p><p>“I know Cas,” Sam said, sad and low. “It’ll hurt for a while, and I’m sorry--we’re both sorry.”</p><p>“It… it doesn’t like the heat,” he choked out.</p><p>“Nope,” Dean replied. “Finally figured that out. We’re hoping it abandons you rather than endure it.”</p><p>“Hope? You <em>hope?”</em> he laughed, and devolved into coughing, and then the thing choked his throat closed again, screaming inside his head about the danger, the smoke, the heat, the fire.</p><p>“Have a little faith Cas, it’s us. We got this,” Dean said.</p><p>Cas knew the Winchesters took big chances all the time, he knew to trust them beyond anything else on earth. He could do nothing but hope their faith, and instincts, were right.</p><p>
  <em>Burn, we will burn, get us out. Kill them! Kill them! You should have killed them while you had the chance Castiel, you will be the death of us all.</em>
</p><p>His eyes rolled back, unfocused and blinded by the cacophony inside his head. When he could think clearly again he tipped forward, letting the chains around his wrists clang heavily against the metal. Through the cloud of smoke and shimmering hot air he watched the fire beneath his feet. “It will slaughter everyone if you give it a chance. End this, no matter what I say, or do, end this.”</p><p>Sam crouched down, so Cas could see his face. “We will. I promise, we will.”</p><p>Everything narrowed to the crackling logs, and the rapidly heating metal. The skin on the soles of his feet blistered and healed again and again, red welts turning to unmarred flesh, only to be burned once more. Over and over.</p><p>He began to sweat and knew his vessel was weakening further. The cold surge of it from his hairline was a small welcome relief at first, but as it dripped from his face and sizzled onto the scorching metal below he let free his first noise of pain. Such a small thing, the rock that signalled the coming avalanche.</p><p>He groaned, turned his head and swallowed hard. The smoke choked him and his eyes watered, the room a blur behind the heat haze. He swayed, dizziness coming in waves. He constantly shifted his feet but there was no relief to be found. A raw and animal sound burst free from his throat, a low keening warble that went on and on and he couldn’t stop.</p><p>In the back of his mind he worried why the parasite had gone so quiet and had stopped fighting. He searched for it and found it trembling, wrapping around his grace, trying to pull the energy aside and climb into the space it occupied--away from the physical world and the threat. It tried to eat through his grace to power itself and he yelled.</p><p>The more it consumed the weaker he got. The blistering welts took longer to heal, his skin began to char, his hair caught fire in the heat and the acrid burning smell filled his nostrils.</p><p>He screamed. There was an answering yell and he opened his eyes to see Dean and Sam throwing more wood on the fire through an open grate. They tossed in logs faster than he could follow--or maybe his perception of time had faltered like the rest of him.</p><p>He was hotter than he had imagined possible--he hadn’t had a vessel when he’d gone to Hell and this was worse than he could have anticipated. He thought that it couldn’t hurt more than it already did. He was wrong.</p><p>The plant began to recede, to crawl hurriedly up his body. It dragged free its thorns and untangled its vines, pulled away from his muscles and joints, abandoned his blood vessels. The hotter he became the faster it went and every inch freed of its hold on him was left raw and aching, an open wound where the heat of the fire seeped in and sizzled at his flesh.</p><p>His scream was louder, tearing free unhindered. He thrashed and tossed his head and the metal clanking of the handcuffs almost drowned out his yelling. He looked down and his skin was pock marked with bright red blisters, but between it, the black wriggling vines of the parasite crawled beneath his flesh, getting higher and higher.</p><p>It screamed too, and the sound of two voices echoed from his gaping jaw, melding together and folding one over the other. It was piercing, raw and dying.</p><p>Before long his lungs and throat were full of vines. Roots and thorns dragged at the tender muscles of his esophagus, digging in and then retracting in rolling waves as it clawed up his body, heading toward the only way out. Cas coughed as it expanded into the larger cavity of his chest, vines reached down the branches of his airways and clogged them. Roots thrust deep until there was no room to draw breath. He remembered it happening in Purgatory in one sudden rush of recollection, and he was just as helpless this second time, and just as unsure that he would make it out alive.</p><p>He choked on his own blood and black sap oozed from his mouth and ran in rivulets down his chin only to drip into the fire and sizzle away to nothing. He couldn’t breathe or speak around the intrusion in his throat, his horror utterly silenced. Head tipped back as far as it could go he trembled between the twin sensations of burning alive and regurgitating something foul from the bowels of his being.</p><p>“Hold on Cas, hold on,” Sam’s voice reached him and he wanted to yell back, to be heard, to beg for help.</p><p>“It’s working, it’ll be over soon,” Dean said, his voice low but clear and Cas latched onto it, onto the hope.</p><p>He felt like it would go on forever. He would always be burning, and always be choking; trapped in this moment until the end of time. Possessed by something evil that clawed up his insides, and cooked alive by the two people he considered his closest friends. His bones would turn to charcoal, compressed by the heat until he was blackened inside and out, and his mouth would house this evil until the end of days and he’d never draw breath again.</p><p>It was antithetical to his being, to feel things so intimately and physically, it went against everything he’d ever known to be so weighed down by the pain of his body.</p><p>He wasn’t an angel, not like this. It had stripped him bare and devoured his power and he was helpless, burning and helpless and he knew, deep down, that he probably deserved this suffering. He’d been choked by a throat full of the black Leviathans before, this wasn’t new. He’d eaten Purgatory once and released its power on the world, it was only right that it should overpower him now, and never let him go.</p><p>But he didn’t want it, and would give anything to have it end, be over. All he could do was choke and gurgle and burn.</p><p>And wait.</p><p>Seconds passed like minutes, minutes like hours.</p><p>But inch by inch, his mouth grew fuller, and his lungs began to clear. He could scream again before long, releasing the agony of the fire through his vocal chords.</p><p>Plant matter overfilled his mouth and stretched his jaw to the point of breaking. He felt the snap of bones pushed passed alignment and teeth cracking under the weight but he didn’t care, because it was leaving.</p><p>It tumbled from his mouth and slithered down his chest, a trail of vines and wet sludge, all black waving tentacles and bulbous gooey things. It hissed a scream as it fell and he breathed his own whistling breath, and hung his head.</p><p>“Get it!” Dean yelled. “Now get it!”</p><p>Sam lurched forward with a pronged stick, speared the mass of writhing things. It screamed again, and Cas, attuned to its speech, heard its voice whisper <em>no, destroyers, no, let me live.</em></p><p>Sam drew back, wrestling with the weight of something trying to free itself from being impaled. Dean darted forward with the heavyweight gloves they’d used to tend the fire and swung open the latch on the grate. Sam thrust it into the flames, root and twig and all.</p><p>The fire raged, one last spurt of burning and a screech rent the air as black vines twisted in the flames. An acrid metallic smell permeated the air, the scent of something dead succumbing to destruction.</p><p>The flames sputtered and died out, overwhelmed by the mass of the plant. The fire crumbled into nothing, logs turned to ash, and the heat ebbed away. There was nothing of the plant left but the smoke that dissipated into the air, remnants of screams that slipped up and out of the vent, to be swept away into the night air.</p><p>Cas was lost in his own anguish, in a vessel that healed sluggishly and slowly. Time seemed warped and strange. He saw the smoke, he saw Sam and Dean sweating over the remnants of the fire, was distantly aware of the heat in the room beginning to drop by miniscule amounts but it was all a blur. Between every blink, it felt like half an age had passed, his eyelids were heavy and stung with the sweat that dripped into his eyes. Maybe he had them closed for longer than he realised, or perhaps the Winchesters moved too swiftly for him to see, but in a flash Sam caught his weight, propping him upright against the pole that held him, while Dean rushed to unclip the cuffs and pull him loose.</p><p>They lowered him slowly to the ground, away from the searing heat of the metal onto cool concrete. He was red as a lobster and as weak as a wobbling but newborn calf, but he was his own, again. Their hands fretted over what to do, but he could only smile, knowing it was over. He felt free, empty, clean. Slowly the wounds of the fire began to close, his blood stopped feeling like it was boiling in his veins, his body hair grew back, and his skin smoothed out until it wasn’t marred at all.</p><p>He smiled at Sam and Dean and their relief was palpable, and it echoed back to them through his slow, sluggish movements. Their hope had proved true, he had endured, and he had won.</p><p>“We’ve got you,” Dean reassured him.</p><p>“It’s over,” Sam said gently.</p><p>Cas smiled unhindered and without having to fight for it. He reached out his hand, and grasped theirs without fear of hurting them.</p><p>When the long day came to an end he was finally free.</p><p>When he looked into the embers of the fire he knew it was over, and he would never endure the possession of that thing again.</p><p>When the new day dawned he found himself above ground with the first rays of sun on his face, alone in the quiet of his own mind for the first time since Purgatory.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It took him many days to begin to feel fully whole. He was wrung out and bled dry; ejecting the thing from his system had also purged some of the last vestiges of his energy. He spent time at the Bunker where the Winchesters had imprisoned him, learning its secrets and the map of its corridors, and let Sam and Dean fill him in on what else had happened in his absence.</p><p>Without the parasite fogging up his mind he remembered clearly everything that it had done, and every place it had lain down roots. As much as it pained him to bare the entire series of his failures before the Winchesters, he knew it must be dealt with.</p><p>Feeling too weak to fly, he went with them by car, suffering the long journey in tense silence and cramped space—trying not to think about how confining it felt after weeks stuffed and caged inside his own vessel, or about what they might find at their destination.</p><p>How many bodies were there? How many innocents slaughtered by his hand? Too many to count by the screams in his memories, and he feared not enough evidence would remain to identify the victims.</p><p>Dean mistook his silence for a different kind of trepidation. “Don’t worry buddy, I don’t think any of these things will be as powerful as their… mother? Uhh, pollinator? For one thing, they won’t be inside an angel, so that’s a bonus. Plus we know fire destroys it, maybe I’ll get to use my flamethrower for once!” He gave Cas a thumbs up in the rear view mirror and Cas nodded his head in response.</p><p>“I’m sure you and Sam will have it well in hand.” He was just here to lead them to the drop sites, none of them wanted to risk him getting too close.</p><p>It was Sam who pulled him aside at their first stop on the journey and made sure to check that he was alright.</p><p>“I know I have no business telling you not to blame yourself, not when... not when I’ve done it too, when—well with the whole Lucifer business. But you can’t blame yourself for what something else did with your body. When you weren’t in control.”</p><p>“We all know I’m at fault, there’s no use denying it.”</p><p>“You couldn’t have stopped it!” Sam refuted.</p><p>“Couldn’t I? I tried, perhaps I was just too weak. Perhaps I didn’t want control enough to fight back, perhaps it was easier to give in.”</p><p>“I don’t believe that, you’re—you’re <em>you</em>. You stopped it from killing Dean.”</p><p>“And yet all those other deaths… ” he paused, and took a breath before looking back at Sam. He knew condemnation might be coming, a few hours, a few days at most. That Sam still wanted to look at him now was a mercy that might not last. “If I hadn’t opened Purgatory in the first place none of this would have happened. I don’t deserve forgiveness, not from you, not from anyone.”</p><p>“We still trust you, <em>I </em>still believe in you. We’ll get you back on your feet.” Sam smiled reassuringly and slapped his shoulder. But when he walked away, Cas saw how pensive he looked, and blamed himself again for bringing up more painful memories.</p><p>There was nothing inside him to gnaw on his energy, nothing besides guilt in any case, but that did the job well enough.</p><p>He spent that night sitting quietly. The hood of the Impala was as good a place as any. The stars were out and he counted them all, tracked their movement across the sky. It was pleasant to sit with himself, the stillness and silence inside his body was divine, so easy to meditate on and get lost in. His grace was slowly being given room to replenish and recuperate, being caught in the plants stranglehold for so long had reduced it to a sputtering spark compared to its usual strength and splendour.</p><p>He had hoped it would feel less depleted before he had to face the horror and truth of the plant's destruction, but he would have to make do, there was no use in waiting.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Yeah, there’s definitely bodies here.”</p><p>Now that they’d burned the creeping, crawling tendrils of the plant—smoke flying away on the wind—Cas stepped closer, close enough to hear what they were saying.</p><p>“Here too,” Sam said, using his boot to turn over a skull in the dirt. “Although…” he bent to examine it and Dean moved closer.</p><p>“Although what?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Sam replied, pulling out his knife to crack the charred jaws apart. “This one isn’t human. Look at the row of fangs.”</p><p>Dean leaned in to get a better look. “Huh. Well, I’ll be damned.”</p><p>Sam walked over to another pile of bones—all that remained of a victim—and tossed some aside until he found a forearm that had a large extra protrusion extending from below the wrist. “This one isn’t either.”</p><p>They both gave Cas an odd look, and he didn’t have any answers for them. He tilted his head to look at the remains himself, and agreed with their estimation. A vampire, a vetala.</p><p>“And here, look at this.” Dean pointed out a skull with a bullethole clean through the forehead. “No-one would have survived this and still been walking around. But you said every memory you have is bringing people alive, right?”</p><p>“As far as I recall,” Cas hedged.</p><p>“Only one explanation then.”</p><p>They both spoke at once. “Demon.”</p><p>“That would explain the demonic signs we were seeing across the map, how we tracked you. It was them we were tracking, you were just here too.”</p><p>“I don’t understand,” Cas said, a strange feeling taking root in his chest. Something akin to hope. “The odds of this happening incidentally are… astronomical.”</p><p>“Looks to me,” Sam replied, walking over with a grin on his face. “That you fought back after all. Brought it live victims, but none of them innocent.”</p><p>“How could I not remember? How could I control that much but nothing else?”</p><p>“Instinct counts for a lot, Cas, it's funny the things you can do, just because it's ingrained in you to save people.”</p><p>“It also helps me understand how this plant-creature... thing... didn’t seem to be thriving here after so much time. You gave it bad meat, Cas.” Sam added, wiping off his machete and raising his eyebrows, his expression cheeky and playful.</p><p>“But they seemed so… terrified. They screamed. A lot.”</p><p>“Even monsters want to live, we all know that.” Dean trudged back to the Impala and came back with shovels. “Come on, let's bury these sons of bitches and move on.”</p><p>“I bet we’ll find the same thing at the next site too,” Sam said, clasping Cas with a one armed hug. “You’ll see, you did everything you could.”</p><p>Cas really hoped so, and his flare of hope bloomed into something much more tangible and real, filling up his chest with light and space, a weight beginning to be lifted. It felt so much better than what had lived there before that he started to feel truly alive again with each unhindered breath.</p><p>“How did you have so much faith?” he asked them both. Then shook his head. “Nevermind. But thank you for believing me, and believing <em>in</em> me, when I couldn’t. Let’s end this, I’m ready to end this.”</p><p>There was still so much to make up for, so much he wanted to fix, but that could wait. First, he had a job to finish, and the energy at last to finally do it right.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this fic! I'd love to know what you thought, and comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated if you made it this far.</p><p>You can check out the collection for other works written for this round of the Eldritch Big Bang, more will be posted between now and the 31st October. And don't forget to take a closer look at the art post if you want to, you can find it <a href="https://saintedjack.tumblr.com/post/631953480154808320/eldritch-bang-2020-art-post-title-killer">here</a></p>
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